Citadel Securities Hires Barclays's Electronic Equities Chief

Barclays PLC. 's head of electronic equities trading is leaving the bank to take one of the top jobs at giant electronic market-making firm Citadel Securities LLC.

Joseph Mecane will become Citadel's new head of execution services, a role in which he will oversee its business in equities, options and exchange-traded funds, Citadel said Friday. He is to start in September, a Citadel spokeswoman said.

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Mr. Mecane joined Barclays in November 2014, five months after the bank was hit with a civil lawsuit from the New York attorney general, accusing it of misleading customers of its "dark pool" for off-exchange stocks trading.

A former New York Stock Exchange official, Mr. Mecane faced the task of mending relationships with Barclays clients. Barclays paid around $70 million last year to settle the suit and related litigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, admitting violations of federal securities laws as part of the deal.

Citadel Securities trades stocks, bonds, options and currencies in markets around the world. It handles more than a third of U.S. retail equities orders, paying online brokerages such as Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade to execute their customer's orders and trade against them.

It was founded in 2002 by billionaire Ken Griffin, who also leads the Chicago-based hedge fund giant Citadel LLC, although the two businesses say they are operated independently.

The announcement of Mr. Mecane's hire comes two months after Citadel Securities said it had recruited Stephen Luparello, a key former SEC regulator, to join the firm as its general counsel.